Psychosis can sneak up on you. My only psychotic experiences are in the area of delusional thinking. During the actual psychotic episode, you don’t see yourself as doing anything weird or thinking anything weird. Everything seems very real. Later, when you are back to a ground state, there may be large gaps in your memory as actually what happened. The people around you will tell you some of the things you did and you will be astonished. in bipolar disorder, a break from reality, any kind of psychosis, can come with primarily manic episodes and mixed episodes. I remember reading somewhere that even a severe depressive episode can bring on a psychotic state. But the real issue is the severity of the episode. a manic episode that crosses over into psychosis is the severest form of mania. But at least for me, you cannot recognize that you are psychotic while it is happening. Maybe some people have some behaviors that serve as warnings, but that’s not the way it happens with me. Fortunately, I have not had a psychotic episode in many years . Knock on wood, but my meds seem to keep that kind of stuff away. I don’t want to ever experience it again. It can be devastatingly terrible, but also incredibly wonderful.